Southern California -- this just in

San Bernardino bankruptcy: 'No one's fault ... everyone's fault'

July 12, 2012 | 7:15
pm

San Bernardino's interim City Manager, Andrea Travis-Miller, blamed years of sloppy record keeping for fueling the city's long-coming slide into financial turmoil.

In an interview Thursday with the Los Angeles Times, Miller said the city's financial problems built up over many years, with no single factor driving the city to decide on Tuesday to seek protection in bankruptcy court. A combination of rising pension and labor costs, falling tax revenues, projects that were undertaken with no analysis of long-term costs, and the loss of redevelopment money from the state all fed the decline, she said.

The city's redevelopment agency had picked up about $6 million a year in expenses that otherwise would have been borne by the general fund, including administrative costs and some services, such as street repairs and code enforcement in redevelopment project areas.

The next step for the troubled Inland Empire city will come Monday, when the council will decide whether to declare a state of emergency or enter into mediation with creditors. It remains to be seen what the move toward bankruptcy will mean for labor contracts or for payments on the city's bond debt.

Miller said the city's financial problems had been evident for many years, but the full scope was not evident until more recently, when she and the new finance director took a hard look at the books.

She said there had been inaccurate financial reporting in the city for many years, which delayed the process of understanding the full financial picture, but she said she had not seen evidence of deliberate wrongdoing.